Medical devices are often equipped with a user interface for input and output of information. The usual user interfaces are display screens such as liquid crystal (LC) screens, thin-film transistor (TFT) screens or organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens, which may be implemented with or without touchscreen functionality. In addition to display of information, touchscreen displays also offer a convenient and variable input option for information when the user touches the touchscreen surface with a finger, and due to the flat design, they also offer a surface that is easy to clean and is therefore hygienic.
Medical devices are frequently also equipped with a variety of other devices for information output and for information input. Therefore, acoustic signals can be output via a loudspeaker. Acoustic input may be carried out via microphones. Optical sensors such as fingerprint scanners or cameras for detecting optical features may also be part of medical devices.
For operation of medical devices, special graphical user guides are often utilized, preferably embodied as graphical user interfaces (GUIs), Such screen-based user guides usually have a predetermined structure with menu views, among which certain functions are combined, for example, the display of measured values or input options for parameters to he set, such as pump rates or the like.
A menu view is defined here as the display of certain information at a given point in time. The information displayed here also includes menu points for adjustment of parameters. For example, a menu may include the display of a pump rate of a certain pump of the medical device, and also the display of a menu point that can be activated by the operator, after which the operator can then enter and/or adjust the pump rate. In the case of graphical user interfaces on devices having a touchscreen display, menu points are usually selected by touching the activation surfaces (so-called touch keys) that are kept for these menu points.
Medical devices may also provide a symbolic representation of the respective device parts to be adjusted, such as pumps, on a touchscreen display, where the input of a parameter for this part of the device is made possible through direct contact with the symbol—for example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,738,052, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
As a rule, the graphical user interface will show a plurality of menu views in order to be able to represent a plurality of information items pertaining to the medical device and input options in a comprehensive and thematically organized manner. To retrieve certain menu views, so-called jump labels can be provided; these can be activated by the user and refer to individual submenu views from a main menu, for example. There are also known jump labels that refer between individual submenu views.
The graphical user interface of the medical device may be designed with different degrees of complexity for different operating modes of the device. For example, in a so-called service mode, the graphical user guide may have a particularly great complexity, because in this mode, access to a particularly varied range of input options and information pertaining to the medical device should be enabled for the operator, for example, a service technician.
Other operating modes that may involve adapted graphical user guides, for example, pertain to the operation by application consultants, trainers or developers of the medical device. The respective graphical user interfaces are adapted to the needs of the respective user and may each have a different degree of complexity.
In such operating modes, numerous special functions can be made available for operation, adjustment maintenance and diagnosis of the device in the respective graphical user interface, and these special functions are not made available to a patient during normal operation of the medical device in treatment of a patient. Discovering certain information or an input option in the graphical user interface has in most cases become increasingly difficult with the increasing the complexity of the graphical user interface.
Thus, certain information or input options, depending on which menu view is currently being displayed, cannot be selected directly by user input. In such cases the specific information or input option is not part of the current menu or submenu view. The user may optionally have to go through multiple user inputs to a menu view and/or a submenu view, which includes certain information or input options. The number of user inputs necessary for this increases potentially with the complexity of the graphical user interface.
The user searching for specific information or wanting to operate a specific input on the medical device must accordingly know in which menu view this information is displayed and/or in which menu view the input option is located for the input being sought by the user.
This requires extensive training and/or experience in handling the medical device.